Letters to the Editor
Marshall-ing the Facts with Marty
While reading the remembrance of Professor Martin Marshall in the June Bulletin, I recalled a humorous but “typically Marty” happening that I witnessed while attending OPM in the late 1980s.
The case before the class involved a large Boston-based insurance company that was confronting some problems. Early in the discussion, Marty asked one of the more vociferous members of the class what he thought of how the CEO was handling the problems. This classmate immediately tore into the actions of the CEO, listed all his mistakes, and then proceeded to present his own solutions while Marty egged him on. When our classmate was finished, to the shock and amusement of the class, Marty slyly asked him if he would like to tell his conclusions directly to the CEO, whom Marty then ushered in from the hall. Wow, that was a memorable Marty experience!
Gordon Smith
(MBA ’59; OPM 13, 1988)
Potomac, MD
Levitt’s Personal Touch Changed Lives and Institutions
I just read Julia Hanna’s piece on Professor Ted Levitt in the September 2008 Bulletin and belatedly hasten to add the story of how Ted Levitt changed my life.
In 1984, while attending my 30th Reunion at HBS, I met and conversed with Ted and told him that I had been conducting business with Russia and countries of the Soviet bloc. He was keen to hear about my thirty years of experience in dealing with the Soviets and intrigued to hear my opinion that the lowest link of the hierarchy of Soviet organizations, the person directly responsible for a specific area or product line, influenced decisions at least as much as the head of the organization. I had been unable to find anyone at HBS willing to even consider the validity of my insight, but when Ted went on to assume the editorship of the Harvard Business Review, he published my relevant article “Where the Ruble Stops in Soviet Trade” (HBR, October 1986).
Ted later introduced me to Paul Lawrence, the senior HBS professor in Organizational Behavior, with whom I would codirect the first Western research ever conducted inside Soviet enterprises. Our findings, which substantiated my insight about Soviet decision-making, were published in Behind the Factory Walls: Decision Making in Soviet and U.S. Enterprises (Harvard Business Press, 1990) and simultaneously in Russia by our Soviet counterparts, with the title Mojhno le oupravleat predpreatiem vmeste? (Can we manage enterprises together?).
This initiative laid the groundwork for our subsequent effort with Laura Gordon Fisher, head of MBA Admissions, to recruit qualified Russians and Eastern Europeans as HBS students. We also assisted Senior Associate Dean Thomas Piper and Professor Francis Aguilar in the creation of the Central and Eastern European Teachers Program (CEETP), which offered management courses to faculty members from Russian and Eastern European universities.
I came to Harvard for an interlude that, due to Ted’s support and introduction, gradually ended up changing my career from business to academia. More importantly, however, Ted paved the way for HBS to connect, learn, and, in its own distinctive manner, contribute to the development of understanding and peace between the two superpowers.
Charalambos Vlachoutsicos (MBA ’54)
Athens, Greece
